NL 333: Parables of the Lost - Luke 15:1-32
image: “Prodigal Son” by Warneke, Heinz photo from Washington National Cathedral (Vanderbilt Divinity Library)
March 7, 2021
Luke 15:1-32
The Sheep and the Coin
Initial Thoughts
For more commentary on this passage see: https://www.pulpitfiction.com/notes/proper19c
These two stories are the first two parts of three stories about lost things. Of course, the third part is the story of the lost son, which is one of the most beloved stories in all of Scripture. The Prodigal son comes to the lectionary in the fourth Sunday of Lent in year
“GRUMBLING IS A NATIONAL PASTIME, even a universal one. We grumble about political leadership, unless the leader is "our person"; then we grumble about the opposition. We grumble about the actions and morals of the current younger generation. In the church, liberals grumble about conservatives, conservatives grumble about liberals, and moderates grumble about both. Grumbling is a reminder of sin, for sin occurs when God's children are not in harmony with creation and with their Creator.” (Art Ross, Interpretation, Oct 2007, p. 422)
“Jesus understands this from the get-go. So, here’s one of the remarkable and heartening things (among many) in this passage: Jesus is engaged in conversation with these men. Unlike the situation of moral outrage we find ourselves in today, where politicians refuse to engage with people from other parties, and people ‘unfriend’ or ‘unfollow’ each other on social media over differing opinions, Jesus is aware that the Pharisees and scribes are themselves lost. He is willing to teach (not condemn or ignore) them as well. This is one of the many beauties of the lure of God.” (Nichole Torbitzky, Process and Faith)
Bible Study
Literary Context
Previous chapter Jesus had just finished preaching about the cost of discipleship (from last week). Telling people that they must be willing to reject their previous social norms and status. So now, after rejecting familial ties over more important connections based on the Kingdom, he is found with the wrong people.
V. 1-2 sets scene as Jesus eating with sinners and tax collectors. Pharisees and Scribes “grumbling” (NRSV).
To be labelled a “sinner” is not the same as the cliche “we’re all sinners.” This group of sinners would have been labelled as such for a habitual lifestyle. Though not mentioned exactly what the nature of the sin, it seems certain the greater society knew what it was and who they were.
Conversely, to be labelled “righteous” was not to be marked as perfect, but as someone who generally lives a life with the law in mind.
“Note that the complaint is not that Jesus has been rousing the rabble or saying the kinds of things that draw this wrong crowd, but that when this crowd draws near to him Jesus welcomes them and eats with them. I suppose they expect him, instead, to excuse himself.” (Mark Davis, Left Behind and Loving It)
“Two quick notes on all this. Eating isn’t catching a quick bite at the local coffee house and moving on. Eating -- that is, sharing table fellowship -- is a mark of camaraderie, acceptance, and friendship. And so in eating with tax collectors and sinners, Jesus is demonstrating a deep and abiding acceptance of those society has deemed beyond the moral pale.” (David Lose, Working Preacher)
According to Wesley Study Bible, “these three parables are intended to move the [scribes and Pharisees] from grumbling to rejoicing.” (Wesley Study Bible, p 1266)
Lost Sheep. (1 of 100)
Similar story in Matthew 18:10-14 - same parable, different interpretation
Shepherd loses a sheep. Searches for it. Finds it. Celebrates.
God is actively searching to reconcile, not seeking to punish.
God - and the heavens - celebrate when even one is found.
Rejoicing is the proper response to God’s love (not grumbling).
Heaven celebrates when one sinner repents.
Seems to be pointed to the Scribes and Pharisees to celebrate the “finding” of the tax collectors and sinners.
Jesus’ rhetorical question needs to be examined more
Is it true that any shepherd would leave behind 99 sheep, unprotected? Is that really what a ‘good shepherd’ would do?
The searching for one at the risk of 99 seems to be frivolous (wasteful, prodigal)
“Many flocks were roughly this size… Shepherds and herders often watched over the flocks together (2.8), so the shepherd here could leave his flock with the other herders while searching for the lost sheep.” (notes from the Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible)
Jesus is not elevating the role of shepherds - despite what some preachers and commentators have stated - Shepherds were not looked down on or despised. For more on this see Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus, pp. 42-44
What is extraordinary about this story?
The shepherd notices that 1 out of 100 sheep is missing
The flock is not complete unless all are found and returned to the fold
The shepherd takes responsibility for finding the sheep - the sheep is not to blame for wandering off, it is the shepherds responsibility to go and find the sheep returning them to the community
The 99 are left in the wilderness! Abandoned and left vulnerable.
Left them in the pasture or wilderness? (CEB vs NRSV)
Instead of picturing Jesus, the good shepherd, carrying one sheep with the 99 either excluded or far in the distance, “It would be helpful to imagine [a picture] with 99 abandoned sheep in the wilderness, and the shepherd walking away in search of the lost one” (Justo Gonzalez, Luke, p. 186)
“How would we feel about being left in the desert while the shepherd goes after the straying one? In that case, what would Jesus be telling us?” (Justo Gonzalez, Luke, p. 186)
Lost Coin (1 of 10. One coin is a day’s wage)
Similarities in structure.
Something is lost. There is a search. It is found. There is celebration.
What was incomplete is now complete- this is what leads to rejoicing
Who is truly the lost? The passive object (sheep/coin) or the one that lost them through ignorance (shepherd) or action (woman) - perhaps the one that was lost is not the object at all, but rather the one whose responsibility it is to keep the flock and coins together (cf Levine, p.48)
According to Gonzalez, the shift is in focus from the lost to the searcher.
The main character is a woman. There is nothing particular gendered about the story other than Jesus says this is a “Woman.”
All the more remarkable is that the surface reading of the story places God/Jesus in the role of the searcher - who is a woman.
She is not a poor, marginalized outcast: she owns 10 drachmas, a house, had friends and community
Her concern - like the shepherds is to find the piece of the whole that was lost
Unlike the shepherd- she claims responsibility for losing the coin
Again, Jesus’ rhetorical question needs to be examined.
If you lost a tenth of your savings - or a day's wage, you certainly would search diligently for it. But if you found it, would you really call your neighbors and have a party?
It seems as if the woman would spend the full coin in celebrating finding it. This feels frivolous (wasteful, prodigal).
Thoughts and Questions
The coin and the sheep aren’t repentant. They are simply found. They take no action, and have no agency. It is the shepherd and the woman who do all the “work,” and then call their friends to a celebration. They are also not involved in their being lost. A coin doesn’t lose itself, nor can a sheep really be blamed for wandering off. Others see the sinners as being totally at their own fault and places blame for their “lostness.” Instead, Jesus shifts to the amazing effort that God is willing to do to claim and celebrate those who are found.
“God's message to us, through these parables, is this: "You are mine. You have always been mine. You were created in my image and are therefore connected to me. And because you are mine, I will seek you out wherever you are and try to bring you back home—because I love you so much!" Can we be open to that kind of amazing love? Can we let down our defenses and self-doubts long enough simply to receive it, to be engulfed and swept away by this love?“ (Julie Perry, Review and Expositor, 109, Spring 2012)
Perhaps this story is not about God’s searching us out, but rather a condemnation for those of us who have failed to look for the lost sheep and coins. It is in letting the sheep stay and in the losing coin that we have sinned and it is in finding them that we repent.
Both the effort to find the lost sheep and the celebration over the lost coin seem to be overkill. Thus is the frivolous - prodigal - nature of the Kingdom. This is how Jesus characterizes God’s joy over sinners, the ones whom society as completely rejected.
These stories are about sin and repentance, righteous and sinner, and grumbling and rejoicing. Who is the one that needs to be found? It seems as if the tax collectors and sinners have already found Jesus. They have done so, and are still considered on the outside. It seems as if it is the ‘righteous’ that actually need to be found. Is it possible to be righteous and still need to be found? David Lose asks:
Might the parents who want their children to succeed so much that they wrap their whole lives around hockey games and dance recitals be lost?
Might the career minded man or woman who has made moving up the ladder the one and only priority be lost?
Might the folks who work jobs they hate just to give their family things they never had be lost?
Might the senior who has a great pension plan but little sense of meaning since retirement be lost?
Might the teen who works so hard to be perfect and who is willing to do just about anything to fit in be lost?
Might the earnest Christian who is constantly asking whether people have accepted Jesus into their hearts be lost?
The Prodigal Son
Initial Thoughts
For more on this passage see: https://www.pulpitfiction.com/notes/lent4c
Great poem on this passage: “Portrait in Nightshade and Delayed Translation” by C. Dale Young
SO many good resources on this passage - here are some:
Kenneth E. Bailey, The Cross and the Prodigal
Kenneth E. Bailey, Finding the Lost: Cultural Keys to Luke 15
The title Prodigal Son first appears in the writings of Jerome (347-420 CE)
According to Arland Hultgren (workingpreacher.com) this story was not in the first lectionary. Then it was inserted as an alternative text in the season of Pentecost. In 1992, the Revised Common Lectionary put it in Lent. “The difference in locales within the church year has hermeneutical implications. If the parable is set on a Sunday in the Season of Pentecost, it takes on a more didactic and evangelic character concerning the mercy of God. But if it is set on a Sunday in Lent, and if one is insistent upon maintaining the mood of Lent, it can take on a more paraenetic (or hortatory) character concerning the hearers’ need for repentance.”
Paraenetic means “an exhortic composition,” or “advice, counsel”
Bible Study
Why did Jesus tell the story? Who was his audience?
V.1-3 Pharisees are upset that Jesus eats and welcomes sinners
Three stories were a direct response to the grumbling
According to Gonzalez, these three stories are:
Lost sheep (the lost)
Lost coin (the found)
Lost sons (the never lost)
All about the rejoicing over finding what was lost - in direct opposition to grumbling of those who already considered themselves “found.”
Do we grumble or do we rejoice?
False and unfaithful interpretation:
The younger son represents Christians saved by Grace and the older son represents the Jewish people working tirelessly to earn their reward from the Father who is God.
Interpretations like this “lessen the message of Jesus and bear false witness against Jews and Judaism.” Amy-Jill Levine, Short Stories by Jesus, p.30
Son asks for inheritance - scandalous?
Two weeks ago (in the lectionary), a lawyer asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Here, the son is taking matters into his own hands to gain his inheritance. Interesting connections may be made.
By asking for his inheritance the son is rejecting his father and family and saying, “I wish you were dead.”
The inheritance was not money, but livestock and mainly: land. This is land what would have been in the family for generations.
Furthermore to sell the land quick and presumably to someone “from the outside“ would disrupt the entire community.
Scandal - the expectation is for the father to reject the request and punish the son for making such a ludicrous request.
Even if the Father had “given” the son his land, he was expected to retain control over it until his death. Here the father gives the land (to make money from) AND the right to sell the land (so the son could “gather” everything)- absurd.
While the request of the son may be foolish, it is not sinful. The foolishness of the request is exacerbated by the father who acquiesces. Levine, p. 52
Prodigal means wasteful
Traditionally alludes to the wasteful nature of the son’s spending
The Father is wasteful in giving the son half of his inheritance (lit. “his life”, gk: bios). The father gives the younger son more than would have been expected (which would have been ⅓)
Perhaps this son is like Joseph “in his move to a foreign land, his increasing degradation, and then his elevation to an elite position.” Levine p. 53
However, could also be the story of the Father’s “wasteful grace” - the Father gives his son the freedom to reject, wish he was dead and squander what the Father has spent his life working for.
There is some question about whether the son could come back at all. While there are a lot of Christian references to the Kezazah Ceremony (lit. Cutting off ceremony), including Kenneth Bailey, finding evidence of this in Jewish literature is hard to find. The reference in the Babylonian Talmud doesn’t seem to apply. However, it is interesting.
V. 15 - The Greek word καλλαω translated as “hired himself” actually mean to cling or attach oneself. To be a “hanger on”. The job of feeding the pigs was probably an act of mercy on the Gentiles behalf.
“Desire to be filled” - same phrase used in the following story about Lazarus (Luke 16:21)
Unclean?
“The prodigal is in an impossible situation, but the issue is not Jewish xenophobia or purity. The problem is starvation.” Levine, p. 57
Repentance?
Not really. The son never expresses regret - only a fear of dying and a wish to be filled. The focus remains on himself, not on what he has done to others.
While he talks of returning to being a hired hand, he repeatedly mentions “his father” showing he has no intention of returning as anything less than the son of the father
This is emphasized in his planned confession, “I have sinned against heaven and against you.” which is a paraphrase of Pharaoh’s declaration to Moses to get the plagues to stop, “I have sinned against the LORD your God, and against you.” (Ex. 10:16) As we know, Pharaoh was not repentant, but wanted to stop suffering
Return Home - Dad breaks all the rules
Runs - leaving behind his dignity, honor, and right to exact punishment.
He is shameful in how he accepts this son who had disgraced him, even going so far as to run (a most undignified act) to welcome him home.
“This may not seem like much to us but a man who ran like this in Jesus time would have been bringing shame on himself. It was below his station and more than that in the act of running he would have exposed his legs in a way which would have been considered indecent. I am reminded at this moment in the story of when King danced with such joy and enthusiasm that his robes also flew up inappropriately. The father risks bringing shame on himself in order to greet the son. This is the depth of his love; he is willing to shame himself and expose his legs, even before the son has offered his confession.” (Peter Lockhart, A Different Heresy)
Levine points out that it may have been fine for the father to run as evidenced by other Biblical depiction of faithful people running, rather his running is a sign of the father’s deep compassion for his son. Levine pp. 59-61
Either way the focus here is on the deep joy and compassion f o the father for his returned son
Ring (family signet ring) granting authority and access to possessions (all that’s the father’s is the son’s).
Shoes grants a return of status: shoes were worn in the house by the master, not by guests who removed them on arrival.
Echoes the Joseph narrative where Pharaoh puts his ring on Joseph’s finger and clothes him in “garments of fine linen” (Gen 41:42).
The contrast, of course, if that Joseph is sold into destitution by others, the son is there by his own actions
Fatted calf (might feed 100 people) whereas the community might reject the young son (see Kezazah Ceremony) instead they are invited to celebrate his return- Also removed any evidence that such a ceremony took place
Older son
His anger is understandable
There are no indication he has done anything wrong: he is not Cain, or Esau, or Joseph's brothers
He is not invited to the feast but left in the field
He has been lost by his father
The Father, like the shepherd and the woman, but seek out his lost son - the older son
Like the father running our to the younger son, now the father leaves his party and his guest to beg his other son
Also a shameful display. The Father would not leave his guest and banquet, especially not to beg to someone who is “lesser”
Luke 15:28, the father comes out to plead (Gk: parakaleo) This is the same word used to describe the Spirit in John- the comforter, the advocate
The dialogue is great - pay attention to the possessive phrases: v. 30 - “this son of yours”; v.32 - “this brother of yours”
Completely valid outrage and complaint from a rational and “fair” point of view
The older son begins acting like the younger son:
believes he is entitled to his father’s possessions (ring, shoes, fatted calf, etc)
Separates himself from the family
Disrespects the father
Like the Pharisees the older brother has done “everything right” but misses the point. The banquet does not celebrate the younger son, but rather the father’s grace.
The Pharisees are also welcome to the banquet - they are invited, but, like the older son, choose not to eat with “sinners”
The older brother sees himself not as a son, but as a hand, he misunderstands his own place in the Father’s life, so he is offended by the other son’s newfound place in it.
Which son is lost?
Brian McLaren, in his book Why did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road, says “As we tell it, the story climaxes when a runaway boy returns home feeling disgraced, hoping to re-enter the household as a slave, and the father graciously receives him as a son. But the real climax, I propose, comes later, when the father slips out of the welcome-home party to speak with the alienated older brother outside.” (p. 161)
“The elder brother is Pecksniff. He is Tartuffe. He is what Mark Twain called a good man in the worst sense of the word. He is a caricature of all that is joyless and petty and self-serving about all of us. The joke of it is that of course his father loves him even so, and has always loved him and will always love him, only the elder brother never noticed it because it was never love he was bucking for but only his due. The fatted calf, the best Scotch, the hoedown could all have been his, too, any time he asked for them except that he never thought to ask for them because he was too busy trying cheerlessly and religiously to earn them.” (Frederick Buechner website, the blog post Parables as Comedy)
Thoughts and Questions
Play Guess Who?
Which one are you?
Different every time we read it. Different any moment of my life. Sometimes I feel like the younger son, who has to “come to my senses.” Sometimes I feel like the older son, wondering why this other one would be loved. Sometimes I’m the Pharisee, grumbling at the truth about the Kingdom which Jesus reveals.
Open-ended.
Unknown if the brothers actually reconcile.
Unknown if the brother was actually repentant, or if he just wanted better food.
It is known how the Pharisees responded - “They sneered at him.”
Unknown how we will respond
Emotion
“It is important to note that all three parables end on a note of joy. There is joy in heaven; the angels rejoice; there is a banquet in celebration of the return of the prodigal. .. If the scribes and the Pharisees see Jesus’ practice of eating with tax collectors and sinners as a lack of religious purity, they will miss the joy of love. If Christians pretend to preach the gospel while seeing ourselves as faithful children of God and looking at others as prodigal sons, we too will miss the joy of the gospel. And a gospel without joy is no gospel; it is not good news!” (Gonzalez, Belief: A theological commentary on Luke, p. 190)
There are so many wonderfully human and divine emotions in this parable: the arrogance of the young son, the hurt-filled love of the father, the despair of the young son, the ecstacy of the father, the anger of the older son, the patience of the father, etc.
Don’t get so bogged down in all the details that you miss the emotional trajectory
Opening music: Misirlou, One Man 90 Instruments by Joe Penna/MysteryGuitarMan at MIM
Closing Song by Bryan Odeen